You Skipped A Set
by wowyoung
Summary: Dan moves to a new school halfway into marching band season. How will learning his sets go?


**A/N sooo this is a Marching Band AU, so if you're not in marching band, you probably won't understand a single thing I'm talking about, but you can still read this and try to understand what the heck I'm talking about. So here ya go. (I preferably love this idea, because all of this is based on truths from my band**

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"BAND TEN HUT!"

"HIT!" The sound of the yelling echoes around the stadium, but there is one sound that sticks out quite a lot.

It is the sound of my "hit" being a tad bit late, as I was zoning out and only heard the command after everyone else had already yelled the word.

It was embarrassing.

A couple people stared at me from the corner of their eyes, and there was no way for me to hide the blush that spread rapidly on my face.

Now they would all know it was me.

I sighed under my breath. This was going to be a long first practice.

We had finished fundamentals, and we had moved on to working on the show. The rest of the band had already gotten through the whole first and second movements the previous month. So, I was tragically behind on the show, of course, and I had to find my own time to learn the sets for those movements by myself.

I had just moved to this school, and joined the marching band. Not only had the school's best flute player injured herself during a football game while marching: she had broken a foot, and would be out the whole rest of the marching season.

And me moving here was the best thing for the band. I was a flute, I wasn't broken, and I could play. Like, really good.

Better than the one who got hurt, if I might add.

So I took the place of that flute player. I got her spot in the flute solo, and I basically filled in her gap throughout the rest of the show.

Hooray for me...

The flute solo was a moderately simple one. It was pretty repetitive and only lasted around fourteen or fifteen measures. Which wasn't as long as the mellophone trio in the second movement, but still. It had to have a lot of vibrato, which wasn't my most favorite thing, but I could do it.

It was a lot of pressure put on me, with just moving here and all.

So here I was, a sophomore with a flute and a solo. And a whole show to learn by next Friday.

Yippee for me.

We had finished running the first psrt, after the flute solo was over and, with trembling hands, I walked back into the showed and took my place in the "umbrella set" for the woodwinds. Which, luckily, was a woodwind feature and the woodwinds got to stand and play it while the brass did some weird marching on the right of us.

After the woodwind feature came the fluttering! Oh, this was just my lucky day.

I put down my instrument, took the two steps forward, stuck my arms out at a 30 angle from my waist, and turned around all within the span of a second. Now came the actual fluttering... and remembering my sets from here on out for the rest of the show.

Fantastic.

After the fluttering, the rest of the first movement was pretty simple and I ended close enough to my spot for the ending set. (I mean, pretty damn good for learning it in a fucking HOUR!!)

And then we rested for 12 beats for the three mellophones to get to the microphone for their trio, and oh god the second movement was starting.

I started off my set a little bit late, and was out of step with the rest of the band. What a great start. I quickly stumbled to get back in step, and during my frenzy, I realized I was marching backwards to the wrong set. I had skipped the fucking set—oh, come on!

And then I felt my body crash into something tall and hard.

My legs slipped out from underneath me, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around my flute to stop it from being dented. It was perfectly nestled into my chest as I hit the ground.

When I landed, I heard another thud next to me and realized I had drug the person I had run into down with me. It was already embarrassing enough to fall, but to drag someone down with me?

Unbelievable.

I managed to grab the person's arm and drag them off the field with me before we got stepped on by some other marchers.

As soon as we were off the field, the person turned on me. I noticed he was a mellophone player before he started yelling at me in a quiet voice.

"How could you make me fall like that? In front of everyone? I feel like an idiot now! To be dragged down by the new kid screwing up the whole second movement? Unbearable! Do you have any idea what this could do to my reputation? I was supposed to be drum major next year—I was promised a spot!—and now you could have ruined my chances!"

I had been hiding my face from his view with my jacket sleeves and my flute, but when I looked up at him, I noticed two prominent things about him.

He was tall, and he was very handsome.

I hadn't realized there were tears in my eyes from his yelling until one slipped down my cheek. He looked kind of guilty now.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you cry!" He seemed genuinely concerned now as he set his mellophone on the ground and took a step closer to me.

"No, no, no. Its okay." I mumbled, wiping my eyes quickly. "I deserve it. I did everything you said I did. Its my fault, don't worry about it." I assured hin hurridly, looking up at him through long lashes, feeling nervous.

This seemed to have an effect in him and a splash of red apoeardd on both cheek and across the bridge of his nose.

"No, forget what I said." He frowned. "Its perfectly okay. I just lost my temper, that's all."

"Okay," I nodded, still unsure about this whole situation.

"Your name is Daniel, right? You have a pretty good flute solo." He stuck out a hand for a handshake.

"Its Dan. And you are?" I decided to ignore the compliment, though it brought a blush to my face. I accepted his handshake, though.

"Phillip, but you can call me Phil." He grinned and his tongue poked out of his mouth. It was the most adorable thing I'd ever seen.

But this time, the second movement was ending and I was beginning to feel the pain from the fall on one side of my body.

Oh, joy. Could this day get any better?

Me and Phil chatted for the rest of the practice, during water breaks and when we went back inside after practice.

And I decided that, as I fell for his blue eyes and big smile, yes, this day could get way better.

 **A/N fluffiness to make up for how depressing my stories have been lately sorry guys (did anyone get tickets to I.I. yet??)**


End file.
